Mel Gibson's comeback - mission impossible? (see Woody Allen)

Cafe Society
21

I’ve never hit my wife, never threatened to kill her, never threatened to rape her, never flown off the handle because she wouldn’t blow me right when I wanted her to blow me, never threatened to beat her to death with a shovel and bury her in the garden.

And this wasn’t just one incident, it was multiple tapes, multiple incidents.

Everybody has arguments with their SO’s, most everyone has said things to b hurtful that they on’t really mean.

NOT everybody punches their SO in the face and makes repeated, terroristic threats.

22

So punching the mother of your child in the face while she’s holding said child is having “a personal life?” Really? How about threatening to kill her and burn down the house? What’s that? Just a little quirk?

23

How many fervent fans? One? One hundred? One thousand? One million?

A few fervent fans cannot sustain a career in film, unless Gibson is content to make low-budget art films for limited release. Somehow he doesn’t seem the type.

24

Alec Baldwin, forgot him; also on the list. Sadly his is probably the least of the offences on there. And yes, I’ve probably unknowingly supported many people (including executives in other businesses, btw) who have done the same or worse. I do feel it’s my responsibility to put whatever pressure I can on those who act badly, especially when alternatives are easily available.

As for the rest of the cast and crew, yes! What about them? If we continue to support movies that include Mel Gibson, then they’ll be forced to keep working with him, or making decisions between their careers and inviting the likes of him into their lives. If the Hollywood exec.s are clear that no matter how good a film they make, it’s gonna swim upstream against his involvement, then the cast and crew are far less likely to have to deal with him.

An added point with Gibson is that I’ll never be able to “unhear” those tapes. His voice will always remind me of them, and that animal panting and sub-human treatment. There’s no way I can imagine voluntarily listening to that voice for 1.5 to 2 hours.

25

So verbal abuse of a child is OK in your book?:confused:

Gibson will recover. In five years few will remember; in ten years no one will care. A little PR work and he can cut those numbers down. It’ll be no more a glitch than Bergman, Polanski, Allen, Bergman, Charlie Chaplin, Robert Mitchum, etc. Hell, even Fatty Arbuckle was making a slow comeback when he died (he had just signed to do a feature film).

BTW, I’m not a big Gibson fan. I liked some of his films, and didn’t care for others. But to think his career is over due to this is absolute nonsense.

26

I just wanted to add one last note to the Woody Allen discussion.

Word is that Soon-Yi was very much the aggressor in pursuing Woody, almost as a parallel to the young Mia pursuing the older Sinatra. And reports are that Soon-Yi is very dominant over Woody in their relationship.

Carry on.

27

Who’s inviting him? If you’re a key grip on a film, do you give up the money? If you spent years writing a script, do you not see it made because the producers think Gibson is right for it? You don’t even have a choice in the matter, so why should you suffer?

In five years, you’ll forget about the tapes (I seriously doubt to play to keep relistening them to remind yourself). In ten years, you’ll only remember how outraged you were now. It’s all a nice rationalization that you’ll never forget, but it assumes you aren’t human.

In six months, Gibson will mount a PR campaign where he apologizes and blames it all on the stress of the situation and that he’s working to keep his anger in check. In a year, the brouhaha will start fading away. Within two years, he’ll make a film and the only mention of the incident will be that the film will be his first since the incident. If it succeeds, he’ll start making others. With a hit or two, he’ll be back to being where he was two months ago.

28

In my opinion, the latest revelations about Mel Gibson don’t change much, if anything.

I think he was ALREADY finished, completely washed up as a mainstream Hollywood leading man. After his drunken, anti-semitic rant, he could NEVER make another romantic comedy, he could NEVER make another buddy-cop picture, and he could never again make light chit chat with Leno and Letterman. THAT part of his career was over forever, long before he started verbally abusing and threatening his girlfriend.

However, he retained enough money and enough credibility as an artist to produce and direct whatever quirky independent films he feels like making. He STILL has that.

He can never star in another “What Women Want” or “Lethal Weapon” type hit, but he can stay behind the camera and make unconventional movies (like “Apocalypto”) for years to come.

If he ends up doing jail time, of course, all bets are off!

29

This. As I mentioned in another thread he able to somewhat overcome the anti-Semitic/Sugartits incident, because many people saw it as just a one-off thing that happened after he had a few too many drinks. He certainly wasn’t the first person caught saying stupid shit while drunk.
But any apology he makes this time is going to be seen as less than sincere. Also he was fortunate enough not to have the previous incident recorded. He may have been a raging asshole then, but no one other than the cops who arrested him saw it. These tapes cast his behavior in a whole other light.

30

The average person still has to deal with social consequences of their douchebaggery.

If my buddy punched his wife, he wouldn’t be my buddy anymore.

And while I have been furiously angry, I’ve never used racist language. If my buddy spewed racist and homophobic shit in a drunken rage, he wouldn’t be my buddy anymore. See how it goes? If you’re a raging fuckwit, you lose social support. Doesn’t matter if you’re famous or not.

31

Mel Gibson will still be able to make movies, he’s a multimillionaire who can finance them himself. But he’s never going to be a box-office superstar. And he hasn’t been for years, he hasn’t acted in a blockbuster movie for almost a decade.

As for the contention that “ah, you’ll all forget in a few years”, did people forget about Roman Polanski? No they didn’t. Or rather, some people did, but plenty of other people didn’t. And thing is, Roman Polanski’s fame is nowhere near Mel Gibson’s level. Mel is/was one of the biggest stars in Hollywood who made hit movie after hit movie, his face is known all over the world and he generated swimming pools filled with money for the studios at Scrooge McDuck levels. Roman Polanski was a director who made a couple of critically aclaimed movies.

Roman Polanski’s career never depended on what a middle aged suburban housewife in Tulsa Oklahoma thought about him. Mel’s does. Or at least, his former career did. He’s never going to make another summer blockbuster romcom or buddy cop movie, but he can make any movie he’s willing to finance himself, and he could probably get stunt-cast in certain non-blockbusters.

32

Aside from that, there was the whole hypocrisy thing with the Pope not being Catholic enough and then cheating on and divorcing the wife.

33

You referred to a 90-year-old scandal centered on a long-dead comedian as evidence that people will forget.

34

Ah, but at least he didn’t use birth control! :rolleyes:

35

Mel’s Gibson’s drama is already fading from the public consciousness. He’s 54 and is looking a bit haggard. It’s unlikely he will be a leading man again in anything he does not finance himself. I imagine he will stick to producing and directing.

I think the main hit for him from his recent actions going into the future is that potential investors in his projects may shy away from him if they think he is unstable. This may limit his financing leverage. If he has a hit or two he’s back in clover.

36

Calling her a pig was over the line. But read the rest of what he says. He’s reading her the riot act for playing gotcha games with an agreed-upon phone call. That isn’t even in the same universe as telling your wife you hope she gets raped by a pack of wild niggers.

37

Nice, like anyone has actually said that or anyone would seriously say “Yes, abuse is OK.”

What could have been a momentary lapse is much more forgivable then what is clearly a pattern of behavior, especially when that behavior contains strong suggestions of actual physical abuse and threats of future phsyical harm.

38

Sorry to semi-hijack my own thread, but who was the actor who called his daughter a fat pig on a phone call? Was that Alec Baldwin? For some reason I think it was, but it goes to show how these things kind of fade from my memory.

As for Mel, there are a LOT of things not to like. However, I don’t believe very many people cared about his drunken, racist, anti-semitic remarks. Embarrassing? Yes. But few people cared to the point they wouldn’t see another Mel Gibson movie. To keep bringing those up sort of waters down the seriousness of what he said/did to Oksana.

This latest incident is different, for sure. Not only is it not a one-time deal (where he could brush it off as a drunken rant), but multiple phone calls. And his rage is apparent in the recordings. A seemingly uncontrolled rage.

But I think **PapSett **has a point. Many of us have said things in the heat of the moment that we regret. I know I have. Have I ever hit my wife? No. Does she know what buttons to push when we have a disagreement? Absolutely. And I know hers. So, when you are on one side of the phone, knowing the calls are being recorded, it is easy to 1) maintain your composure and 2) hit those buttons to create a maximum reaction.

Mel is responsible for his actions, but he was a fish that swallowed the worm.

Dio, I know that you are the perfect spouse that’s never lost his temper when it comes to your spouse and any children you may have (I don’t know if you have any children or not, but assume you would never raise your voice to anyone in your family no matter what the situation). But you are a very rare person. To never yell at a loved one, to never be yelled at, and to never have the person who knows you the best poke you with a stick in a sore spot during a heated debate makes you either 1) single, with a fantasy family or 2) someone with a very selective memory.

I think if we are all are honest with ourselves, we know there have been less-than-shining moments in our lives. I’m not suggesting those moments meet the level of Mel’s. I know mine don’t. But I’ve said things I wish I could take back immediately.

Anyway, the one other thing I read that may have some legitimacy to it is that Mel is or has been taking HGH, steroids, or whatever guys his age in Hollywood take to try to stop the aging process may have altered his personality to the ogre that he seems to now be. Does anyone know anything more about that? I know that Stallone has taken “something” that keeps his aging body remarkably buff for his age.

I doubt Mel will ever be a leading man again, but he’ll make movies, and probably be a success as a director and/or producer.

39

I didn’t say I’ve never yelled at my wife or kids. I didn’t say I’ve never lost my temper. I didn’t say I was perfect. I said I’ve never hit my wife, or threatened to kill her or threatened to rape her. Not having done those things does not make me exceptional, it makes me normal. If you think that kind of behavior is normal in a marriage or a family, then I don’t know what to tell you.

I don’t hear any “button pushing” in those tapes, by the way. I think you’re imagining things. Not that it would matter in the slightest.

40

There’s something that I call the Squick Factor.

Some people may choose to completely boycott a particular person’s work, such as TruCelt. While the boycotts will have some effect on the box office, the Squick Factor will have a much larger effect.

The Squick Factor is a sort of generalized aversion to or uneasiness about something. How it works is that given a choice, a person will choose to see the movie without the element that causes the Squick Factor. The person may not even realize that it’s affecting their choice. So even if a person isn’t actively avoiding a particular actor, the Squick Factor ends up having a big influence on their decisions.

If enough people get squicked out by a particular actor or director, all of those spur-of-the-moment decisions to see some other movie, multiplied across the population, will have an enormous effect on the box office.

Woody Allen and Tom Cruise are two people who have a high Squick Factor for me. I don’t actively boycott their stuff, but if they’re involved, I’ll probably end up choosing something else. But if, say, the people I was with really wanted to see one of their movies, I would go and I might even enjoy it. Enough people feel as I do that their careers have been significantly impacted.

Mel Gibson gained the Squick Factor for me at the sugartits incicent, and has now gone way way beyond it. I think lots of people would agree with that. But even for the people for whom his behavior hasn’t spurred total avoidance, the Squick Factor will be in effect.

Nobody’s going to forget this. It may not be foremost in their mind, but it will affect their moviegoing decisions for as long as Mel Gibson is still working in the industry.